Valentine Reading & Viewing

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WITTY ROMANCE FOR VALENTINE’S WEEKEND

(free vector.com)

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

Romance is a hot genre these days.  It’s come out of the closet or perhaps better put, out from under the covers.  Romance novels, historical ones and contemporary ones, have been around for years.  New sub-genres incorporate fantasy or feature gay protagonists.  With their large readership, romance titles are also receiving more attention from the reviewing world and even academia.  Note the new exhibit related to romance cover art and publicity materials, Romancing the Novel, at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland.  It’s curated by a male communications and cinema professor.  

Texan Katherine Center’s recent rom-com, Hello Stranger, features artist Sadie Montgomery.  A portrait painter, Sadie is struggling to gain recognition in her career.  A finalist in a big prize competition, she must produce one more work for it when she has a major accident.  Post surgery, she awakens with face blindness (a real condition where human faces often appear incomplete.)  She tells only a handful of friends as she struggles to adjust.  

Sadie is attracted to her dog’s vet as a potential mate and makes damning assumptions about a neighbor in her apartment building.  It’s funny, poignant, heartwarming, and a really good story!  You will route for Sadie all the way through.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY GONE AWRY

The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts by Louis Bayard

Oscar Wilde (wikipedia.com)

Constance Wilde knew Oscar loved her and their children.  He was affectionate, but not passionate.  In Louis Bayard’s marvelous new novel, The Wildes, we see Constance as she becomes aware that her husband’s emotions are more fully engaged elsewhere.  It is late summer in Norfolk, England, an escape from London for this family, and the young poet Lord Alfred Douglas, familiarly known as Bosie, is coming to visit.  

In the opening chapter, we follow Oscar and Constance on a leisurely stroll as she quizzes him about this latest house guest.  It is a brilliantly rendered description of wifely curiosity and husbandly dodging of the real issue.

Subsequent chapters or acts follow Constance and sons Cyril and Vyvyan, to Italy where they live under assumed names during Oscar’s time in prison, to the sons in the mucky trenches of WWI, to Vyvyan some years later re-visiting the past to try to sort it all out, to finally a re-imagining of the family’s sojourn in Norfolk in 1892.  Well researched and beautifully crafted, Bayard’s novel sensitively combines reality with creativity.  One of the best literary novels I’ve read in some time!  (~JWFarrington)

COMFORT VIEWING, AUSSIE STYLE

Darby and Joan (Acorn)

Darby with Joan (rottentomatoes.com)

English widow Joan, a retired nurse, is determined to find out what her late husband was up to in Australia, when he was supposed to be in Barcelona.  Boldly setting out in her mobile home across the wilds of that country, she encounters retired Australian detective Darby whose truck has broken down. Her offer of a ride quickly becomes a shared journey as they deal with a death among a group of hippies and then travel on to assist an old chum of Darby’s.  

The story is light, the banter between these seniors is engaging, and the mysteries they solve are often murders, but the series is not gruesome.  There are two seasons with 8 episodes in Season 1 and six in Season 2.  The Chief Penguin and I have now watched the first two episodes.  Thanks to new friends for suggesting it.  Recommended if you are in the mood for stress free, fun viewing!

Note: Header image of hearts from Unsplash.com

Carolina Comments: History & Politics in Several Guises

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ABROAD AT HOME:  A NUGGET OF RALEIGH HISTORY

Pope House Museum

This week we toured the Pope House Museum in downtown Raleigh not far from the capitol.  Built in 1901, this small two-story building was the home of Dr. Manassa Pope and his family.  Pope was the first licensed African American doctor in North Carolina.  Born in 1858 to free parents, he graduated from nearby Shaw University and then got his training at Leonard Medical Center.  He fought in the Spanish American War and later helped start a bank in Durham.  

Manassa T. Pope, 1910 (Pope Museum)

Dr. Pope and his first wife Lydia bought the land and then built this house.  She died of tuberculosis in 1906, and he and his second wife Delia, an educator, had two girls.   The house was in a middle-class Black neighborhood and a mark of his success.  It faced Wilmington Street which was the dividing line between the African American neighborhood and a White neighborhood. 

In 1919, during the Jim Crow era, Dr. Pope was a candidate for city mayor.  He didn’t expect to win but wanted to show that African Americans had the right to vote.  His daughters, Evelyn and Ruth, became teachers and lived in the house until their deaths.  Neither married nor had any children.  Fortunately, the city of Raleigh acquired the property and preserved it as this museum.

The house is small but worth a visit to see the artifacts and photos documenting this man’s prominent role during a difficult era in history.  February, Black History month, is still being observed in towns like Cary. It is a fitting moment to see the Pope House Museum, to reflect on the past, to appreciate how far our society has come, and alas, to be fearful how far backwards we may go.

LOVE AND POLITICS: A NOVEL

How to Sleep at Night by Elizabeth Harris

Author Harris (nyt.com)

Elizabeth Harris is a New York Times reporter who covers the publishing industry and authors.  She has frequently written about trends in book banning including how it can be done under the radar.  How to Sleep at Night is her first novel, and it’s a treat.

Ethan and Gabe are a married gay couple with a 5-year-old daughter.  When Ethan announces, he is going to run as conservative Republican candidate for Congress, Gabe, who is a Democrat, is stunned and flummoxed, but agrees to go along.  Ethan’s sister Nicole is a suburban mother of two kids married to Austin.  Her marriage has become stale, and she feels somewhat adrift.  Nicole re-engages with old college flame Kate, who is a newspaper reporter, and both their lives become more complicated. 

Politics plays a big part in this novel, but it’s equally a novel about love, the vagaries within marriage, and the appeal of new love.  The characters are well drawn–even the children are convincingly real– and there is wit and warmth midst the chaos.  Recommended! (~JWFarrington)

BRAIN FOOD: GREAT DECISIONS PROGRAM

America’s Role Going Forward

The Chief Penguin and I are participating in one of the Great Decisions discussion groups offered here.  Great Decisions is an annual program developed by the Foreign Policy Association.  They provide a text which contains background reading for the weekly sessions, each chapter written by a different expert. The 2025 theme is “America at a Global Crossroads.”  An accompanying DVD has sections related to each chapter.  

Thus far, I’ve been impressed with the quality of the background reading and have found the DVD lectures building on and expanding the chapter information.  It’s clear that the materials were prepared after the 2024 election making them very relevant.  Tariffs and the history of American trade policy since WWI were part of our most recent session.  Food for the brain!  

BLACK HISTORY BOOK DISPLAY

Note: Unattributed photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

CAROLINA COMMENTS: READING & ART

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This week I’m sharing my thoughts on a new novel by Fiona Davis along with some works I found striking at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke. I’m continuing to consider some of our outings in Cary and beyond as other examples of Abroad At Home.

ENTERTAINING NOVEL: THE MET AND EGYPT

The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis

Fiona Davis (facebook.com)

True to form, The Stolen Queen, the latest historical novel by Fiona Davis, centers on an iconic building in New York City.  Earlier novels featured the New York Public Library (The Lions of Fifth Avenue), the Barbizon Hotel for Women (The Dollhouse), and Grand Central Terminal (The Masterpiece), to name just several.  For this work, it’s the Metropolitan Museum of Art and specifically its antiquities and Egyptian collections.

Set in 1936 and 1978 in Egypt and Manhattan, it’s the story of two women and their search for a stolen artifact (the queen of the title), a missing jewelry collar, and a lost daughter.  Charlotte Cross was a budding archaeologist in Luxor in the 1930’s when her life was upended by tragedy.  In 1978, she is an associate curator at the Met, keenly focused on her study of a female pharaoh, yet still torn by not knowing the fate of her infant.  Annie Jenkins is nineteen, loves fashion, and by happenstance becomes Diana Vreeland’s gopher in the run-up to the Costume Institute’s annual gala.  Due to some unusual circumstances, Annie and Charlotte join forces to search for the missing antiquity which involves traveling to Egypt and excavating the demons of Charlotte’s past.

The novel is a romp in the Met Museum, fun for anyone who has spent any time at all there, while simultaneously being a complexly threaded set of relationships and events.  The female pharaoh and a few other characters are based on historic figures.  It’s a quick read and enjoyable, even if it all seems to be resolved too neatly!

ABROAD AT HOME:  ART IN DURHAM

Nasher Museum of Art

Friends invited us to join them for an outing to the Nasher Museum of Art on the Duke University campus in Durham.  I knew of this museum but had never visited, nor had I ever seen it.  The building itself is stunning with a soaring wide lobby topped by angled metal trusses and lots of glass.  Designed by noted architect Rafael Vinoly and opened in 2005, it’s a light-filled welcoming space.  Galleries and exhibit spaces are off to the side in appropriately semi-dark rooms.  

Interior, Nasher Museum

Several exhibits are currently on view and some are small so, we were able to explore them all to some extent.  We spent the most time in By Dawn’s Early Light, a major exhibit marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 set against the historical backdrop of the Constitution and several key amendments.  The exhibit is wide-ranging in its coverage of people and documents through photography, painting, and sculptural pieces. Here are several works that I found striking.

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, a Native American from Montana, presents a map of the United States emphasizing its whiteness with white paint colors instead of state names.  The countries surrounding the US are multi-colored.  North Carolina is Breakwater White.

Fifty Shades of White, 2018
Detail showing North Carolina and neighbors

Americans have the right to bear arms. I found this Celtic cross composed of AK 47 rifles a chilling statement on what one might call “gun worship.”

Cross for the Unforgiven, 2002, Mel Chin

Another powerful piece for me was the historic Confederate flag, part of a performance piece in which the flag was deliberately torn. The colorful threads on the shelf at the bottom are formless and perhaps available for something new.

Unravelling, Sonya Clark, 2015
Tabaco, Diego Camposeco, 2015

Individuals from other lands come here seeking to fulfill the American dream for themselves.  Many of these are migrant workers, often Latinos. See Diego Camposeco’s print at right.

There is also moving section, “Freedom to Assemble” with images of Martin Luther King and others gathering and facing down armed troops at the Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965.  Mounted on mirrored sienna glass, the photos are very reflective making it impossible to get a photo worth sharing.  

By Dawn’s Early Light is timely and worth a visit. It runs through May 11. 

The museum also has an informal café space offering tasty salads, sandwiches, eggs benedict many ways, and omelets.  We four enjoyed lunch there midst the Under 25 set.  We had escaped our home bubble for a student-filled campus bubble.  Fun!

Note: All unattributed photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved.) Header photo is of the massive bronze sculpture, MamaRay, by Nairobi-born artist Wangechi Muta. It was installed at the museum in 2021.

Carolina Moments: January Diversions

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January is a winter month, and very much so this year for much of the U.S. We cocoon more, spend more time reading and watching TV, and only venture out when the weather moderates. Here you’ll find a thoughtful novel, a comforting drama series, good food in Cary, and reflections on a noted chef.

NOVEL OF THE WEEK

Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett

Author Haslett (hatchettebookgroup.com)

Prize-winning fiction writer, Adam Haslett is the author of short stories and several novels.  I found his 2016 novel, Imagine Me Gone about depression within a family, compelling and sensitive.  His latest novel, Mothers and Sons, might simplistically be dubbed a novel about gay love.  But it is so much more than that.  It’s a novel of feelings, nuanced relationships, estrangement, violence, and secrets.  

Peter Fischer is a 40ish immigration lawyer in New York, dedicated to his work almost to the point of obsession.  He deals with individuals traumatized by the violence or abuse they experienced in their home country, who seek to stay legally in the U.S.  Peter has little social life outside the job and tepid relationships with his work colleagues.  He is estranged from his mother Ann and seldom in contact with his sister Liz.

Ann was an Episcopal minister who left her husband, Peter’s father, for another woman.  Together she and Clare founded and built a retreat center for women in rural Vermont.  In dealing with the case of Vasel, a young gay man from Albania, Peter finds himself reliving and agonizing anew over his adolescent friendship with his classmate Jared.  Haunted by his reflections, he at last visits his mother to explore their mutual past.

This is a deliberate novel with perhaps too many immigration cases leading up to Peter’s focus on Vasel.  Vasel’s elusiveness and withholding of details push Peter to review his own relationships and actions of twenty years ago.  Meanwhile, his mother misses her son but is examining her own love for Clare, while trying to shove aside her attraction to another community member.  The events of twenty years ago don’t really feature in her memory until Peter comes to visit.  

This novel probes its characters’ innermost feelings. They are complex individuals whose vulnerability and weaknesses the author shares. Chapters occasionally alternate between present day and Peter’s memories of his teenage years.  Recommended for fans of literary fiction!  (~JWFarrington)

COMFORT VIEWING

All Creatures Great and Small Season 5 (PBS Masterpiece)

Helen, Jimmy, & James (parade.com)

If you’re looking for something soothing and somewhat sentimental, Season 5 Of All Creatures Great and Small may be just right.  It takes place in a somewhat simpler time, albeit marked by James’ and Tristan’s war service and the anguished worry and waiting of their family back home. 

Quirky veterinary intern Richard Carmody provides additional color while security warden Mr. Bosworth’s gruff and exacting exterior masks a soft center.  Baby Jimmy ‘s cuteness appeals to everyone, and Helen and Mrs. Hall capably maintain the household and keep Siegried and everyone on an even keel.  It’s a heartwarming series with moments of poignance and levity.  Recommended!

ABROAD AT HOME: LUNCH IN CARY

Pro’s Epicurean Market & Cafe

Colorful olives

The weather on Saturday had warmed up enough that we walked downtown, by the park, and farther on to try Pro’s Epicurean. It’s a brightly lit, attractive restaurant that also functions as a market for wines, vinegars and their dishes.  The cuisine is a mix of French and Italian with charcuterie and cheeses, crepes, salads, pastas, meat and seafood entrees, and a host of specialty sandwiches.  The staff were friendly and very welcoming.  

Between us, we sampled the olive medley, the country pate, and a best-to-be-hungry sausage, peppers, onion, and melted mozzarella Raphael sandwich.  The sandwiches can be had on a baguette, seeded rye, or a soft roll; the Raphael would have been easier to eat had it been on a roll.   Wines, beer, mixed and soft drinks, and creative mocktails are also on the menu.  In warmer weather, you can eat out on their patio.  Recommended!

REMEMBERING CHEF CHARLES PHAN

The Chief Penguin and I enjoyed many delicious Vietnamese meals at Charles Phan’s Slanted Door restaurant in the Ferry Building in San Francisco. Some of my favorite dishes were the imperial spring rolls, his signature shaking beef cubes, and cellophane noodles with crabmeat.  He was a pioneer who gave Vietnamese cuisine new prominence on the food scene.

We also got to know Charles a bit as he created and oversaw the first dining venues at the then newly open California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.  Over the years, he opened satellite locations of Slanted Door along with developing other restaurant concepts.  Covid closed the Slanted Door in San Francisco, but other locations exist in Napa and elsewhere.  Sadly, Charles Phan died of a heart attack at 62 this past week.  We have fond memories of his cooking.

Note: Header photo of January sunrise and olive medley ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)